1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a document editing apparatus for preparing a document from a plural electronic layer data pieces, and more particularly relates to a document editing apparatus that displays a layer added newly in a document editing process so that the intention of the addition of this layer is understandable on a screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some document editing apparatuses for preparing documents from electronic data and for editing prepared documents, plural permeable layers that contain description contents are placed one on another and displayed to thereby prepare a unified document, and a layer is added to the base description to build-up the description content.
FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 show the document editing process concept in the document editing apparatus as described hereinabove.
In detail, as shown in FIG. 5, a document includes plural transparent layers and a user can write arbitrary description on layers. The description contents, which are placed one on another, of the layers are displayed by displaying the layers that are placed one on another on a screen to be thereby displayed on a screen in the form of one document.
Furthermore as shown in FIG. 6, when a user wants to add a new description content such as a comment to a document, a new layer (work layer) is prepared temporarily and a comment is written on the layer, and the new layer is subjected to deterministic operation to be added to the document. Thereby the user can add the new description content to the document.
According to the document editing apparatus as described hereinabove, a user can add a description content desiredly to a document by adding a layer that includes the new description to the document, and can delete a description content of a document desiredly by deleting the existing layer.
Because of the convenience, the document editing apparatus as described hereinabove has been used in the working system in which plural users commonly manage a document and each user edits the common document individually to thereby construct a complete document.
However, in the case of such a conventional document editing apparatus in which layers are added one after another and the description content of the document is edited, the context of the edition cannot be understood and it is difficult to understand the intention of the user (editor) who has edited the description content when someone works on the document afterward. Such difficulty is a problem.
For example, a comment was added to a document, it becomes unclear afterward that the comment was added to a document of what description content, and the intention of the user who has added the comment cannot be understood.